Film & New Media

ALEX BRADEN: ORPHAN

Orphan is an auditory sculpture experimenting in sound localization that exercises the brain's unique ability to identify the origin of a sound according to the information it receives from the ears. As opposed to modern stereo recordings which utilize artificial reverberation and panning to trick the brain into an assumption of depth and space, Orphan is a physical sphere, a fully three-dimensional listening environment that allows the listener to engage with recorded sound in a much more dynamic and lifelike manner. Each of the nine speakers that comprise Orphan—placed above, below, and beside the listener—plays sounds that are unique to each speaker; but together they become a spherical and harmonious chorus, a sublime aural experience.